The Australians launched their final assault on the last Japanese strongpoint on the northern coast of Wewak, New Guinea. Cut off from support and defending a backwater that had been by-passed in the Pacific War, the Japanese nevertheless fought on fanatically until the 23 May when the surviving sick, starving and broken force retreated into the mountains. ww2dbase [Main Article | AC]

The Target Committee of the Manhattan Project, led by Robert Oppenheimer, decided the best targets of the atomic bomb were Kyoto, Niigata, Hiroshima, Yokohama, and Kokura. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]

German President Karl Dönitz ordered all promotions and awards to cease. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]

The Soviet Prague Strategic Offensive in Czechoslovakia concluded. On the same day, SMERSH agents arrested many Russian émigrés in Prague; in 2003, the Czech government would name this day "the day of the destruction of Russian intellectuals". ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]

Germany

Military medical doctor Lieutenant Colonel Faust Shkaravsky of Soviet 1st Byelorussian Front concluded that one of the two bodies Soviet SMERSH agents retrieved near the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany was that of Adolf Hitler's. ww2dbase [Main Article | Facility | CPC]

Soviet counterintelligence official Pavel Meshik reported to the Soviet high command in Berlin, Germany that Soviet discipline was poor, and that lootings and rapings continued to occur in and around the German capital. ww2dbase [Main Article | CPC]

US Far East Air Force B-25 bombers based in the Philippine Islands attacked targets in the towns of Kagi (now Chiayi) and Koshun in Taiwan. ww2dbase [CPC]

United Kingdom

Sergeant Jack Hinton of New Zealand 2nd Division received the Victoria Cross from King George VI at the Buckingham Palace in London, England, United Kingdom for bravery exhibited while fighting in Kalamata, Greece on 28 Apr 1941. ww2dbase [CPC]

"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. You win the war by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country!"

George Patton, 31 May 1944

About the Site

The World War II Database is founded and managed by
C. Peter Chen of Lava Development, LLC. The goal of this
site is two fold. First, it is aiming to offer interesting
and useful information about WW2. Second, it is to showcase
Lava's technical capabilities.